A confirmation statement is an annual Companies House filing confirming your company’s core details are correct on public record. You must file one at least once every year, with a short period after your review period ends to submit it. The online fee is £50 from 1 February 2026, and directors need to have completed Companies House identity verification before the filing will go through.
TL;DR:
- The online fee will rise to £50 from February 2026, with paper filings costing £110 and taking longer to process.
- Confirmations should be filed within 14 days of the review period’s end, which occurs annually or when early filing is chosen.
- Files must include current registered office, director, PSC, shareholder details, and SIC codes, with separate filings required for director or office changes.
- Identity verification is often a stumbling block, and incomplete checks cause rejection, requiring re-verification before successful submission.
- Failing to file on time can incur fines up to £5,000 and lead to company strike-off, with common errors including incorrect capital figures or bundled changes.
Table of Contents
- How to file your confirmation statement step by step
- Checklist: the exact company details to check inside the CS01
- When to file, review periods and the 2026 fee change
- Consequences and common mistakes when filing confirmation statements
- Confirmation statement versus annual accounts and the Company Tax Return
- Why tidy statutory records matter more than directors think
- How I can help with your confirmation statement
- Sources
How to file your confirmation statement step by step
Before you touch the online form, gather three things: your company authentication code, each director’s Companies House personal code, and the registered email address linked to your account. Without these, WebFiling will stall halfway through.
Most directors file through Companies House WebFiling, and the process is genuinely quick once your details are in order:
- Sign in to WebFiling with your company number and authentication code.
- Work through each section (registered office, directors, PSC, shareholders, SIC codes) and confirm or update anything that has changed.
- Review the summary screen carefully before submitting.
- Pay the online fee and confirm.
- Keep the confirmation email as your evidence of filing.
You’ll usually see the update reflected on the public register within a day or two.
Paper filing via the CS01 confirmation statement form still exists, but it’s now mostly reserved for restored companies and a small number of legacy cases where online filing isn’t possible. The paper fee is higher, and you’ll need to check Companies House’s current postal address before sending anything.
Identity verification trips up more directors than you’d expect. Companies House won’t accept a confirmation statement until required identity checks for directors and PSCs are complete. If your filing gets rejected for this reason, verifying your identity through the official GOV.UK route, then re-submitting, usually resolves it within a day.
Pro Tip: File any changes to directors, PSCs or registered office using their proper forms before you start the CS01. Trying to bundle everything into one filing is the single most common reason submissions bounce back.
Checklist: the exact company details to check inside the CS01
The confirmation statement isn’t a form you fill in fresh. It’s a check against what Companies House already holds, so your job is verification, not data entry.
- Registered office address, plus any single alternative inspection address (SAIL) if you use one for statutory records.
- Director and secretary details, including service addresses and, where relevant, usual residential addresses (kept off the public register but still required).
- People with significant control (PSC) — anyone with more than 25% of shares or voting rights, or the right to appoint or remove a majority of directors. Trusts and nominee arrangements are a common edge case directors get wrong.
- Statement of capital and shareholder information, covering share classes, the number of shares issued, and voting rights attached to each class.
- SIC codes, the five-digit codes describing what your company actually does. Choosing the wrong one doesn’t carry a penalty, but it does distort Companies House data and can look odd to lenders or due diligence checks.
- Registered email address, which Companies House uses for official correspondence, including filing reminders and rejection notices.
Pro Tip: Keep a simple spreadsheet of PSC and shareholder changes throughout the year. Reconstructing shareholdings from memory at filing time is where most inaccuracies creep in.
When to file, review periods and the 2026 fee change
Your review period runs for 12 months, starting either from incorporation or from the day after your last confirmation date. Companies House calculates your confirmation date automatically; you can check it any time on the public register.
You’re allowed to file early, and doing so resets the next 12-month review period from that new date. This can be useful if you want your confirmation date to align neatly with your accounting reference date or another statutory deadline, though it does mean the following filing comes round sooner too.
Fees are tied to submission date, not review period. From 1 February 2026, the online fee is £50 and the paper fee is £110. Only the first statement filed within a payment period attracts the fee; further statements filed within the same period are typically free.
| Filing method | Fee (from 1 February 2026) | Typical processing |
|---|---|---|
| Online (WebFiling) | £50 | Same day to two working days |
| Paper (CS01) | £110 | Several working days by post |
Pro Tip: If you’re planning to file early to lock in the current fee before a future change, weigh the saving against having to file again sooner. It’s rarely worth disrupting your natural filing rhythm to save a few pounds.
Consequences and common mistakes when filing confirmation statements
Companies House guidance is direct: failing to file can lead to a fine of up to £5,000 and the company being struck off the register. That’s not a hypothetical, it’s the stated consequence for persistent non-compliance, so treat the 14-day window as a hard deadline, not a guideline.
The mistakes I see most often are avoidable:
- Trying to report director appointments, PSC changes or registered office moves through the CS01 itself, when the form explicitly states these need separate filings first.
- Submitting without completing identity verification, which causes an outright rejection.
- Inaccurate statement of capital figures, often from forgetting a share issue earlier in the year.
If you spot an error after filing, correct it on your next confirmation statement or by filing the relevant standalone form immediately. You cannot amend a CS01 after submission.
Confirmation statement versus annual accounts and the Company Tax Return
These three filings get confused constantly, so here’s the distinction. The confirmation statement is a Companies House administrative check confirming who runs the company, who owns it, and where it’s based. It contains no financial information at all.
Annual accounts, filed separately with Companies House, are your financial statements. The Company Tax Return goes to HMRC and calculates Corporation Tax owed. Typical timing differs too: your confirmation statement is due within 14 days of your review period ending, accounts are usually due nine months after your year end, and your Company Tax Return is due twelve months after year end, though tax itself is often payable sooner.
Why tidy statutory records matter more than directors think
As an AAT-licensed bookkeeper and accountant, I spend a fair amount of time helping limited companies across Kent and further afield untangle statutory records that have drifted out of date. It’s rarely dramatic. A share allotment from two years ago never got recorded properly. A director’s service address is still the old office. Nobody quite remembers who counts as a PSC anymore.
None of that causes a crisis on its own, but it compounds. When a lender, buyer or HMRC officer checks your record, discrepancies raise questions you didn’t need to answer. Tidy records, kept current through the year rather than reconstructed each March, remove that friction entirely.
I run client bookkeeping through Xero, QuickBooks and FreeAgent, which keeps shareholder and structural changes logged as they happen rather than guessed at filing time. It’s a small habit that saves real hassle later.
— Chris
How I can help with your confirmation statement
Filing itself takes minutes once your details are right, but getting them right is where directors lose time. I check registered office, PSC and shareholder details against your records, help resolve any identity verification issues, and prepare and submit your CS01 so nothing gets missed or bounced back. Every engagement is scoped and priced upfront, so you know the cost before I start.
If your statutory records need a proper review before your next confirmation date, or you’d simply rather hand the filing to someone who does this daily, visit my Tonbridge accountancy services page to see how I work, then get in touch to arrange a check.
Sources
For the current rules, go straight to GOV.UK’s confirmation statement guidance, the CS01 form itself, and the Companies House fees schedule for the latest figures.
Need help? If you’d rather have someone check and file your confirmation statement correctly the first time, get in touch and I’ll talk you through it.
- CS01 confirmation statement form (PDF) – Companies House
